In the Museum of Lost Objects

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee; What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage. Ezra Pound You’ll find labels describing what is gone: an empress’s bones, a stolen painting of a man in a feathered helmet holding a flag-draped spear. A vellum gospel, hidden somewhere long ago forgotten, would have sat on that pedestal; this glass cabinet could have kept the first salts carried back from the Levant. To help us comprehend the magnitude of absence, huge rooms lie empty of their wonders—the Colossus, Babylon’s Hanging Gardens and in this gallery, empty shelves enough to hold all the scrolls of Alexandria. My love, I’ve petitioned the curator who has acquired an empty chest representing all the poems you will now never write. It will be kept with others in the poet’s gallery. Next door, a vacant room echoes with the spill of jewels buried by a pirate who died before disclosing their whereabouts. I hope you don’t mind, but I have kept a few of your pieces for my private collection. I think you know the ones I mean.